Matters of Time
by Idiot Jello
Summary: It's on the cover of every tabloid in the drug store. The Vitex heiress has a new boyfriend. His name is Sam Hallet, has a penchant for uttering Italian expressions, and brings an old, battered fobwatch with him wherever he goes. Rose/10
1. Chapter 1

He's forever falling, through logic and reason and insanity and reality, and he can't discern good from bad or from anything at all. He's so numb but feels so alive and so trapped at the same time. Then something goes wrong, something's malfunctioning, and this prison of paradise is every so slowly gradually draining away.

It's only a matter of time now.

0000

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh _fucking _shit…_

Generally, Rose Tyler's thought process is a bit more substantial, but at the moment she's on the run from some distant cousin of an Absorbaloff and can't be bothered to keep her inner monologue child-friendly or pertaining to any form of consequence.

Rather, the only thing she's thinking about is getting the _hell_ away from the nefarious alien that's bent on absorbing all the blondes of London to become the latest reincarnation of Shirley Temple.

But, because someone in this universe bloody _hates_ her, she's forced to stop, her little runaway interrupted by a bar fight – a bloody _bar fight_. That's right, Earth's blondes are in peril and the universe could implode at any minute, and she gets caught in the middle of some skirmish between two ignorant, drunken oafs that will by next morning have no memory of the night before.

Absently, Rose thinks: _been there, done that_. But then she's almost smiling, because she can't help but be a bit proud of herself. Three years ago, she was getting smashed every other night with the scum of London, and now's she's recovering from a platonic relationship with a time traveling alien with commitment issues while serving as both defender and diplomat of the world at an institute dealing with extraterrestrial beings – doing the impossible, Pete calls it.

Doing the impossible sounded awfully like going completely bonkers, but Rose supposes they might be the same thing anyways.

However, this train of though is quickly squashed as the universe proves yet again that it hates her. Of all the innocent bystanders watching a bar fight, Rose is the one that gets knocked down as one bloke throws the other smack into her.

"Oof," Rose grunts, "Concrete is hard." She opens her eyes, and is suddenly face-to-face with the most handsome man she's ever seen.

"Oh!" he exclaims, "Oh! Oh, oh, _oh_. Today's my lucky day. After all, it's not every day you land right on top of some gorgeous blonde. Well, not for me it isn't. Maybe for some blokes that are on top of another blonde every other night – not me, I can assure you. I'm very monogamous when it comes to relationships and women and I should've shut my gob about two sentences back if I wanted to have any chance with you at all, right?"

"Do me a favor: get the hell off me and buy me a drink first before you start planning our wedding, mate."

He is up and off her so fast if she'd blinked she would have missed it. His eagerness is surprisingly refreshing, and she can't keep the nostalgic smile off of her face as she too stands. Turning, she studies the other man. Tall. Beefy. Rather over-confident. He's the sort of person whose only true weapon is also his greatest flaw. While brute force may be useful in smashing the living daylights of some guy half the size of yourself, it isn't so valuable when dealing with a little Torchwood style kickboxing.

The poor sod is on his ass within five minutes, and Rose tells herself she only did it to clear the sidewalk so she could continue on her way to Torchwood Tower. After all, there is no way she could possibly fancy and want to defend that _idiot_ of a flirt that promised her monogamy two seconds after they first met whose name is Sam Hallet and whose right hand has her cell phone number scrawled on in the sharpie she keeps in her purse.

0000

Mel, of course, has trouble deciding whether to scorn or gush over this latest piece of office gossip.

"You met at a _bar_?" she questions incredulously, the twang of her accent grating on Rose's ears. She fixes the blonde with a disbelieving look, lips pursed in a tiny pout. Rose notices the tiny dash of her gaze behind and to the left of Rose. Rose happens to recall a certain attractive language rep's desk to be there, and she almost smiles. Kirk Jones and Melanie Peladeau have been pounding this will-they won't-they relationship into the ground for the last two months. It's downright sickening, and Melanie reminds Rose of Shireen and her in year seven – pouting, fluttering eyelashes, and denying all attraction towards any male within hearing.

"Pouting," Mel once said, "Is the perfect way to get men to look at you. Real pouting, though. And you have to be good at it. Most girls look like emo chipmunks when they try to pout." Rose, at the time, wondered how many hours of thought went into this philosophy.

"We met _next to _a bar," she corrects, resisting the urge to glance down to her shoes. Breaking eye contact, Rose knows, is a dead giveaway of emotion.

Mel somehow manages to snort delicately. "Oh yeah, 'cause that's _so _different. Rose, sweetie, I think you're delusional."

"Great. See, Mel, you're the type of friend every little girl dreams of. Supportive, sensitive, and pretty too!"

She flips her strawberry-blonde hair over one shoulder while sweeping her heavily mascara-ed eyelashes. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you, sweetie. But enough of that. Was he cute? C'mon, what was he like?"

Rose smirks but yet decides to humor the nosy raccoon-eyed flirt. She tells Mel that he's absolutely gorgeous – all rusty blonde hair and eyes like hazelnuts.

"Hazelnuts? Don't tell me you've been _thinking_ about him, Rose. You met at a bar!" Melanie's left brow quirks all-knowingly.

She wants to say "Oh, _yeah_? Well, I met my last boyfriend during an alien invasion!" but doesn't think it would go over well. Mel, despite working for Torchwood – lives by a very close-minded set of rules. _Unlike Jack_, Rose remembers, _that one would jump anything with a pulse. _

Instead, Rose Tyler, defender and diplomat of the Earth, alumni TARDIS traveler, and baker extraordinaire retorts: "Shut up."

Her raccoon companion smiles. "Aw, don't pout darling. You're starting to look like one of those chipmunks. And really, I think it's adorable. Sort of like one of those romantic comedies I used to watch when I was fourteen."

Rose is not amused. "Yup, that's me – Bridget Jones for ya. All I need to do now is cook up some blue soup and take up binge drinking."

0000

She's in conference with the ambassador of Floun'n when a tinny version of _Pokerface_ explodes from her purse. Rose flushes as she pulls out the cell phone, mumbling apologies. "Very sorry, Ambassador Felbourne." She's just about to ignore the call when Melanie notices the caller I.D.

"No way, Rose. Answer it. You don't mind, do you, Ambassador Felbourne?" Melanie chirps, flashing a hundred-watt smile.

"Who is it?" asks the ambassador. "Is it a boy? Answer it then."

Rose looks from Melanie to Ambassador Felbourne to Melanie and then back to her phone. She lets out a tiny nervous laugh, weakly smiles, and excuses herself.

The ambassador turns to her body guard. "I do _adore_ young love," she informs him. "Have you seen Bridget Jones' Diary? It's one of my adored favorites. Goes well with chocolate – _bittersweet_ chocolate, mind you. Milk chocolate is absolutely horrid with Hugh Grant. Milk chocolate is more of a Colin Firth sort of thing."

"Yes, Ambassador," grunts the guard.

0000

"_Hello_?"

Sam Hallet smiles. All day he's been trying to remember exactly how her voice sounded. Honey, he decides, and syrup.

"Yeah, this is Sam, uh, Sam Hallet. We met—" He stops himself before going any further. He decides that a stuttering reminder that they met a bar while he was more than a little tipsy wasn't the best way to secure a date.

"_Yeah?_ _Oh. _Yes_, yes I remember you. Um –" _Sam strains his ears to hear the voices in the background. Something about Brad Pitt and truffles.

"Erm, am I interrupting something?" He inquires, nervous. He hears some crashing and someone shouting about an Ambassador.

"_Ah, no._" She sounds out of breath. "_Everything's_—" A rather alarming sort of buzzing sounds – almost like a gunshot.

"Rose? Was that--"

"_Everything's fine! Just give me a sec, 'kay?_" Sam nods, then remember she can't see him.

After a while of dead silence, Sam decides to count. He's on twenty-two when he hears Rose's voice again.

"Hello? Sam?"

He grins involuntarily, ignoring the strange look his co-worker gives him as he pass by to his cubicle.

"Yes, I'm here."

"_Fantastic." _He can hear the grin in her voice. "_So I was thinking about Thursday for dinner at the place between the pizza place and the salon on the 34__th__?" _

"Thursday? Yes, Thursday. Thursday is great. Fantastic. Marvelous. Brilliant. _Molto Bene,_" he quips, smirking to himself.

There is silence on the other end. He wonder's if he's offended her in some way.

"_I'm sorry, what'd you say?_"

_Aw, shit. _Sam curses.

"_Molto Bene._ Means 'very good,' in um, Italian?"

"_Right. Yes, I knew that," _Rose says, _"It's just…"_

There's another beat of silence.

"_I'm sorry, I have this Absorbaloff that's trying to bite off an ambassador's arm. See you Thursday? Bye!"_

There's a second, a slow swell of possibility before Sam convinces himself he's gone insane and that there's no way Rose fought off…whatever she said…in her spare time.

Right?


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N**_: This took forever. I have no excuses.

* * *

All is golden, a slow, lazy gold, flowing past her eyes like honey. At first she doesn't notice it, but the noise is persistent.

_Beep. Beep. Beep_.

Scrunching up her nose, she rolls over.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

_Go away_, she wills the noise.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Suddenly, her golden sanctuary is gone. Instead, Rose sees the glow of her alarm clock. 6:23, it flashes. Groaning, she turns her head away.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

The sound is almost patronizing. One arm reaches out, fumbles for a moment, and then hits the clock on what Rose assumes is the off button. Instead, she knocks the clock off its balance, and it tumbles to the floor with a crash.

"Fuck," she swears to herself, and throws the covers off.

0000

Rose rushes in the kitchen pouring herself a cup of coffee and downs it. She's about to rush back out the door, but Jackie stops out the door.

"Oi!" her mother protests. "That's not good for ya. Have a banana or something."

Rose blanches, pretending it's from the burn of the coffee rather than the burn of memory. "I hate bananas," she says, and leaves the house.

0000

"You look like shit," remarks Mel, as Rose passes by her cubicle.

"Shut up," Rose deflects, making a beeline for her office. "Jenna," Rose instructs her assistant, "If anyone asks, I'm not here. Or dead."

"Yes, ma'am."

Rose ignores the mocking note in Jenna's tone and stomps into her office, slamming the door behind her. Onside, she sighs, letting go of all the tension that has built up between her shoulders though the morning. It hasn't been three hours since she got up, but she can tell it's gonna be one of _those days_.

_Those days_, of course, referring to the days that occur -- ooh -- every month or two where she can't fall asleep because there isn't that little pressure of a time machine's humming inside her mind and (_squeezing her eyes closed and just wishing, wishing_) she can almost, _almost _hear that sound of its engines but it kills her (_makes her want to scream and cry and do all sorts of things grown-ups probably shouldn't do_) that she just can't quite hear it for real.

Opening her eyes once more, she trudges over to her desk, collapsing into her chair. Automatically, her eyes flickers over to her inbox. Rose cringes when catches hold of the ominous words: **mission report: Tyler, Rose : mission 0286**.

Rose _hates_ paperwork.

Slipping her iPod into her pocket and tucking her laptop under her arm, Rose decides that right now would be an excellent time to hide away in an Unidentified Artifacts Storage Closet and play solitaire.

0000

"Mummy, I wanna biscuit." Large doe eyes stare at her, all hopeful and beseeching. Jackie adopts her sternest expression.

"You're shameless, you are." She scolds the two-year-old. "It's only eleven AM! No desserts until after supper."

Tony pouts like only a true toddler could. "But _Mummy_!"

Jackie finishes the shirt she was folding. "Shush, hun. Why don't you help Mummy fold the laundry?" Pop music interrupts their conversation. Jackie shakes her head. "Rose must've left her mobile here," she says more to herself than Tony, whom is at moment quite busy in sulking about his loss of early biscuits. Traveling over to the next room over, Rose's room, Jackie spots her daughter's mobile on the dresser. Before she stop herself, Jackie picks the phone up, pressing the 'Talk' button.

"Hello?" She answers, cautiously, and quite bewildered at her own nosiness.

"_Hello? Rose?_" Jackie nearly gasps. It's a _man_. She checks the caller ID. _Sam Hallet_. Rose doesn't have a Sam Hallet on her team, does she? Jake, Mickey, Mel, Kirk, Jenna – but no _Sam_.

"Sorry, hun," Jackie apologizes, "Rose forgot her mobile at home. But I could give you her work number."

"_Oh, that be brilliant, thank you._"

His choice of words surprises her for instant, and she silently berates herself. It's not like that stick of an alien twit _owned_ the word or anything. Plenty of people said the word everyday. Jackie dismissed the issue. Really, she was becoming as bad as Rose.

"Here it is, --- --- ----, the person on the other end should be able to track her down for ya."

"_Thanks much_."

Jackie slid the mobile closed with a smile on her face. Maybe, just maybe, her daughter was finally moving on.

0000

"Rose."

The person in question looks up, the picture of a dear caught in headlights. Sheepishly, she closes her laptop and pulls the iPod ear buds from her ears. "Wha'?" she says, trying to look as innocent as possible.

Mickey rolls his eyes. "Well one, it's nearly lunch time and your mission report paperwork is still on your desk, and two, there's a bloke that's called you three times in the last hour. Sam Hallet?"

"Oh. Right. Um." Instinctively, she reaches for her pocket where she usually keeps her phone, only to find herself uselessly patting at limp material. "Shit. Must've left my mobile at home. I'll call him back through the office."

"Right," confirmed Mickey. Then, with an air of slyness, he said, "Just remember that all Torchwood calls are recorded. Best not too get too dirty wi' ya man."

Rose scoffs. "Oh, my god. Mickey. What are you, thirteen?" She beings to gather up her things.

"You love it," he grins, and they start for the lift together.

"Wrong. Couldn't get more wrong if you suggested that I had a gay pet penguin from Mars."

Mickey looks over to her, his eyes slightly widened in alarm. "I think you've been on the internet for too long."

"Ugh, stop it, really. I'm not in the mood for this." The two arrive at the lift, and Mickey pushes the 'up' button with his thumb.

As suddenly as anything, the good humor drops from Mickey's lips. "Are you…" He licks his lips. "Is it one of _those _days?"

Rose swallows, feeling the burn of unshed tears sting her eyes, but she refuses to cry. She absolutely refuses to break down in front of her best mate in the middle of the bloody lift in the middle of the bloody day.

"Yeah." She says. There's a slight swoosh, and Rose identifies it as the sound that Mickey's unkempt hair makes against the material of his jacket as he looks away. The two of them fidget, unconsciously swaying away from each other to compensate for the elephant in the lift.

"It's just," Rose begins again. "I'm trying to get over…that, and, that part of my life, but…I don't know if I am, or…or I'm just, like, lying to myself." She turns her head to look and him. Wordlessly, Mickey pushes some button on the lift wall, and then Rose can't feel the lift floor rising underneath her feet any more. For a long moment the two remain silent, and Rose wants to talk but can't think of anything at all. Her mind is suddenly and inconveniently blank.

"I'm sorry Rose. That you can't see him." Rose looks at him, and almost. Even though he's twenty-four and part of a team that deals with bloody alien interaction, Mickey is Mickey. He's the same bloke that held her hand when Jimmy was gone, the same bloke that tried to hold her hand even when she didn't want him to and hold her back, and the same bloke who's willing to do it again now that her old life is a universe and a half away.

She smiles, without a clear idea of why she does so. "It's not just that. It's everything. It's the TARDIS and the running and all those planets and moons and time periods that I can never, ever go to anymore."

Mickey is the one smiling now. "Don't lie, Rose. You wanted the Doctor. You wanted the picket fence and the dog and the two-point-four kids."

Rose exhales, exasperated. "No. _No!_I never wanted that. Not ever." He's about to protest but she interrupts. "Not even when we were together and serious. I knew you wanted it, you practically even proposed." She watches his face as it his expression sours ever so slightly. "I never wanted that. I'm sorry, but I didn't."

She expects him to blown up with angry or maybe fall silent with sadness. He doesn't do either. Sometimes she forgets that he's moves on, and its the part of herself she hates the most.

"That's why you went with him, right? Cause he's not the settling-down type, either."

"I guess. But you know...he didn't understand it either. You blokes are can be so thick. All those times he tried to send me back...He wanted to keep me safe...of course, from the Daleks and monsters and whatever...but it was also from him. He knew he couldn't do the picket fence and everything. I guess he didn't want me to get my hopes up." Her voice quiets. "He didn't want to hurt me. But that didn't stop him, did it?" Her voice cracks, and she hates it. "I don't suppose you've ever had someone who you would do anything for -- just _anything_ -- and they thought you didn't love them exactly as they were?"

There isn't much to say. "I'm sorry, Rose," Mickey says anyway, and she's glad he did.

"Yeah."

Mickey pushes the button again, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.

0000

Same Hallet pats about his person. "Keys, keys, keys," he mutters. He swears he had them a moment before. He glances at his fob watch and groans. If he didn't find his keys soon he'd be late. He closes the fob watch (_not noticing the flash of light),_ and pauses in his search. It's funny, his fob watch. He'd never noticed it much before. When did he buy it? Where?

He can't quite remember -- even the idea of the watch is elusive, and he has to concentrate hard to think about it. The watch...he bought it... Something with gold, he imagines, and doesn't immediately recognize the oddity of the memory. "Gold, watch, _molto bene ,_ravens, keys...Keys!" Sam suddenly remembers. He bounds to his bedroom and snatches the keys off the dresser. "Good."

Then he rushes off into the night, forgetting all about the watch.


End file.
